Buster's sarcophagus school project

[Buster's Uncle]

My niece came here with a school project on Egyptian funerary practices, and since I'm friends with Uno, I was obligated to take some pictures and post.

[Rusty Edge]

Were you consulting on the masks?

[Buster's Uncle]

Mylochka did the deathmask without me - and nailed it.

Mylochka did the lion's share of the work - most of the funerary objects were flat, so I told her to roll out some sculpey flat, scribe the symbols like drawings, cut them out and bake.  Then she painted them, all under Buster's supervision. 

M roughed out the frog/pharaoh figure on top of the shoebox/sarcophagus, I did a little touching up/smoothing behind her, and Buster's Gramma did more smoothing behind me before Mylochka painted him.

Momma made the pharonic accoutrements the stuffed Frog Pharaoh is wearing.

I made the canopic jars (which I wasn't happy with the jar part, but the heads on the lids came out pretty good) and Mylochka (of course) painted.

The teacher's instructions were to put biographical scenes on the sides, and Buster looked up frog lifecycles and Egyptian funerary art and designed the four panels on the sides.  She painted the chariot panel with almost no help.

You'll love this part, Uno - in class, she's going to cut open the stuffed frog and place stuffing in jars.  I hope she'll be able to take poor froggy home and sew him back up afterwards, as a resurrection and happy afterlife would be a very Egyptian thing to do...

I figure she's gonna make an A...

[Unorthodox]

Always wanted to do a sarcophagus.  Whole egyptian theme would be really fun...


Love the canoptic(spelling) jars too.

[Buster's Uncle]

The whole thing was frustrating, because we only heard about it the day before she showed up, and what I imagined doing with that shoebox was so much more ambitious - but there just wasn't time.  I wanted to build up that lid with cellite and paper mache' to look like a separate slab, instead of a hinged lid, and do all those paintings as bas reliefs, and cover the whole thing in paper mache' to hide where the cardboard showed around the edges and corners and generally give it more strength and heft...

For that matter, I would have loved to make the inner coffin-with-a-Pharaoh-face sarcophagus to go inside...

The canoptic jars are crooked and don't match, and aren't really tapered to the right shape, and the lids are a mess, except for the heads I made looking pretty good.  I don't have to tell you that an artist frequently wrestles with knowing when it's good enough to stop, and between short notice and knowing I was kicking myself trying to impress an 11 year-old and some teacher in Califoria - just had to settle...


It all reminds me that I've had in the back of my head for nearly 20 years that I'd like to fool with some small Egyptian pieces.  For instance, a little Ramses on his throne, a'la Abu Simbel, would not be too difficult, and would make a nice, compact, knick-knack that wouldn't be tough to mold, cast and pimp on EBay...

[Buster's Uncle]

Incidentally, Uno, it strikes me that an Egyptian Halloween theme might be a welcome change of pace, have a lot of resonance with the public as a 'hook' and might even put the neighbors off less.  That there's your theme for next year if it's too late for this one, I'd say.

[Rusty Edge]

Well Buncle, what's to stop you from doing an all out Nefertiti-Barbie, now that you're warmed up ?

[Buster's Uncle]

Mostly that I wouldn't know how to cast something that worked as a posable doll, and not a small statue...

Doing up a Barbie as Nefertiti is doable, but that's my wimminz' thing, not mine...

[Rusty Edge]

I was thinking more in terms of a sarcophagus for art's sake, but there's something to be said for commercial enterprise.

[Buster's Uncle]

...You know, I've had an idea percolating in the back of my head for over a decade of carving a Barbie in wood for Mylochka - sort of a meeting of Barbie of those wooden artists' posing figures, articulated, but with a varnished wood finish.  I haven't done anything in wood in about 25 years...

Probably not the next thing I do, but one of those ideas waiting for me to feel like working on.

[Unorthodox]

The canoptic jars are crooked and don't match, and aren't really tapered to the right shape, and the lids are a mess, except for the heads I made looking pretty good.  I don't have to tell you that an artist frequently wrestles with knowing when it's good enough to stop, and between short notice and knowing I was kicking myself trying to impress an 11 year-old and some teacher in Califoria - just had to settle...

All the ones I've ever seen up close like are crooked and don't match, though.





It's on the someday to-do list, but more for a professional haunt than my home.  It's a monumental effort to pull off to my standards, and almost demands indoors as opposed to outdoors.  Plus most of what I like about the Egyptian theme also translates well to the Spider Woman/Mayan/Aztec theme I was working in 2010 before it was all destroyed.  I WILL revisit that some day. 

I've also become pretty married to the pumpkin carving of late.  At least pumpkins make sense in the new world...

[Unorthodox]

Really should have mummified a frog....Should only take a couple days.

(morbid, I know...)  Bet I could whip up a fake mummy frog...the skeleton is rather cheap, corpsing after that is easy...

[Buster's Uncle]

If I was cool with killing a toad, I should think a small tuperwear full of salt would do it pretty quickly...




Amusing that you can tell which one is which from behind.

[Buster's Uncle]

Hey Geo - does this make you regret not bring a school project with you?

[Geo]

Hey Geo - does this make you regret not bring a school project with you?

Wow, I'd definitely have felt out of place during an artist's family brainstorm.
Also, isn't BUster's gramma and  BUncle's momma one and the same person?

I'm afraid I'm more in favor of premade parts. Easier to handle for a brainy fellow like me.